Odyssey quotes Flashcards
Foreshadowing in the proem: b1
“it was their own transgression that brought them to their doom”
b1 ‘Odysseus alone was prevented from returning…
… to the home and wife he yearned for’
b1 Athene describes Odysseus as?
“the wise and unlucky”
“pining on a lonely island”
b1 Athene describes Odysseus’ situation
b1 Telemachus introduction - ‘sitting disconsolate among the suitors…
… imaging how his noble father might come back’
b1 Telemachus ‘Zeus will bring a day of reckoning…
… when in this house I will destroy you - and not make restitution’
b5 ‘on the journey he shall have neither gods nor…
… men to help him’ - Zeus
b5 ‘as for the lion-hearted Odysseus…
… …he was sitting disconsolate on the shore in his accustomed place’
b5 ‘tears and sighs and heartache’
Odysseus yearning for home
b5 ‘it shows the crafty way your mind works’
Calypso to Odysseus who doesn’t trust she is truthful of sending him home
b5 ‘in a work-manlike manner’
‘this too he skilfully made’
Odysseus shows his physical strength and resourcefulness - hero’s qualities
b5 ‘like the north wind at harvest time tossing about the fields a ball of thistles that have stuck together,…
… the gusts drove his craft hither and thither over the sea’
b5 ‘like the pebbles that stick to the suckers of a squid when it is torn from its lair’
Odysseus’ hand skin sticks to the rocks of Scherie
b6 Odysseus is compared to “a mountain lion” “with fire…
…in his eyes” when he appears in front of Nausicaa
b8 “he wept as a woman weeps when she…
…throws her arms round the body of her beloved husband, fallen in battle”
- Odysseus crying at Demodocus’ tale of Troy
b23 “it was like the moment when the blissful land is seen by struggling sailors…
… … it was bliss like that for Penelope to see her husband again”
b9 “like a man boring a ship’s timber with a drill”
Odysseus + crew blinding Polyphemus
b9 “the cyclops’ eye hissed round the olive stake in the same way that…
…an axe or adze hisses when a smith plunges it into cold water”
b21 “it sang as he plucked it with a sound…
…like a swallow’s note” - shows harmony between Odysseus and the bow
b22 “they scattered through the hall like a herd of cattle…
… that a darting gadfly has attacked and stampeded”
b22 “swooped down on them just as…
…vultures from the hills”
b22 “she found Odysseus among the corpses of the dead, spattered with blood and gore,…
…like a lion when he comes from feeding’
b22 “like fish that the fishermen have dragged out…
… … to lie in masses on the sand longing for the salt water, till the bright sun ends their lives”
b10 “they carried them off like….
…fishes on a spear”
b12 “like an angler…
…on a jutting point” - Scylla
b9 “had hopes of some friendly…
…gifts from my host” - xenia is Odysseus’ downfall with Polyphemus
b9 “my temper was up; their…
….words did not dissuade me” - Odysseus’ crew beg him not to provoke Polyphemus but he doesn’t listen
b9 “we lit a fire, made an offering to the gods,…
…helped ourselves to some of the cheeses”
- Odysseus bad xenia at Polyphemus’ cave
b5 “he is not doomed to end his days on the island, away…
…from all his friends” - Hermes to Calypso about Odysseus
b1 “I propose that we all take our places in the assembly…
…so that I can announce my demand that you quit my palace”
- Telemachus standing up to the suitors - ‘my’ palace
b10 “for we came to grief through our own senseless stupidity”
Odysseus at the beginning of book 10 - note ‘we’ when it was the crew which actually opened Aeolus’ bag
b10 “an untrustworthy crew and a fatal sleep…
…were my downfall”
Odysseus explaining to Aeolus why he has returned
b10 “they carried them off like fishes on a spear…
…to make their loathsome meal”
- Odysseus men are compared to fish, much like the suitors
b10 “my men were as deeply moved as if they…
…had reached their home-land and were standing in their own town in rugged Ithaca”
- The men are relieved to see Odysseus come back from Circe’s alive
b10 “what possesses you to stay on here? It’s time you thought of Ithaca”
Odysseus’ men confront him after a year on Circe’s island. Compare to Aeneas’ warning from Jupiter to leave Carthage
b10 “even this time I did not…
… lead them all safely away”
Odysseus’ speaking of Elpenor’s death but revealing some level of guilt for previous deaths
b11 “if you leave them untouched… there is some chance that all of you may yet reach Ithaca”
Teiresias predicting the future, regarding Hyperions cattle
b11 “if you hurt them, then I predict that your ship and company will be destroyed, and if you yourself contrive to escape, you will reach home…
…late, in a wretched state, upon a foreign ship, having lost all your comrades”
b11 “it would be a great advantage to me to arrive in my own dear country with more possessions. For thus enriched I would…
…win a warmer welcome and greater respect from everyone who saw me on my return to Ithaca” - in the interlude of book 11, Odysseus describes his desire for gifts and the reputation they offer him
b11 “there is nothing more degraded or shameful than a woman who can contemplate and carry out deeds like the hideous crime…
…of murdering the husband”
- Agamemnon on Clytaemnestra
b11 “Icarius’ daughter is far too loyal in her thoughts and feelings”
Agamemnon on Penelope
b11 “make a secret approach. Women, I tell you, are no longer…
…to be trusted”
- Agamemnon advising Odysseus (despite just saying how good Penelope is)
b8 “it is chiefly to me that you owe your life”
Nausicaa telling Odysseus to remember her
b8 “the god may do it, or may let things be. It is for him to decide as he pleases”
Alcinous tells Odysseus of the prophecy that Poseidon would one day destroy one of their ships. Can be used to show the role of the gods
b9 “never for a moment did they win my heart”
Odysseus on Calypso and Circe - he also says Circe “detained” him
b9 “my fools of men refused”
Odysseus encourages the men to escape after they have pillaged the land of the Cicones (Ismarus) but they refuse
b9 “to forget all thoughts of return”
Odysseus’ men who have eaten the lotus. Shows the focus on ‘return’
b9 “to find out what kind of men are over there”
Odysseus’ curiosity distracts him from his nostos and leads him to go and see the cyclopses
b9 Odysseus said he had a sense of foreboding that they would find “some barbarous being of colossal strength and ferocity…
…uncivilized and unprincipled” - Before they enter Polyphemus’ cave. Shows how the monsters were seen in Homeric society
b9 “how can you expect ever to have a visitor again from the world of men?…
…You have not behaved rightly” - Odysseus chastises Polyphemus
b9 “tell him your eye was put out by Odysseus, sacker of cities, the son of Laertes, who lives in Ithaca”
Odysseus cannot resist but try and further his fame, telling Polyphemus who it was that hurt him “if anyone ever asks you”
b9 “let him come late, in wretched plight, having lost all his comrades, in a foreign ship, and let him find trouble in his home”
Polyphemus prays to Poseidon to hurt Odysseus. These words are very similar to what Teiresias says in book 11
b10 “I debated within myself whether to jump overboard and drown or stay among the living and quietly endure”
Odysseus contemplates death after the men open the bag of winds. Compare to the storm of book 5, when he wishes to have died in a glorious way whereas now he just wishes to die. He is completely dejected and covers his head with his cloak
b10 “a woman of mountainous proportions”
Antiphates’ wife - Laestrygonians are monstrous, compare to titans
b10 Odysseus refers to his men as :
“comrades in suffering”
b10 “I have absolutely no choice”
Odysseus tells Eurylochus he has no choice but to go to Circe’s palace and try to rescue the men
b10 “we are as happy to see you back as we would be to set foot on our own island of Ithaca”
the men are happy to see Odysseus, Odysseus describes it as calves reuniting with their mothers
Who tells Penelope he has seen an omen that “Odysseus is actually in his own country at this moment… gathering information…. and scheming revenge on the Suitors”?
Theoclymenus - book 17
b17 “all-seeing Zeus takes half the good out of a man on the day he becomes a slave”
Eumaeus says to Odysseus that without their master ordering them, servants will stop doing there duties as they should - therefore no one has bothered to look after Argus
b17 Athene “urged him to go round collecting scraps from the suitors and so learn to distinguish the good from the bad, though this did not mean that in the end she was to save a single one from destruction”
we have established their are good suitors, yet not good enough to be saved
Who does Penelope describe as “like a black spirit of destruction” in book 17
Antinous
“Amphinomus…you seem to be sensible…and I hope that some power…
…may guide you away to your own home and that you will not have to face him on the day he returns”
- book 18, Odysseus warns Amphinomus
“at this the noble suitors threw up their hands and died of laughing”
book 18 Odysseus punches Irus and “red blood gushed up through his mouth” (similar to Antinous)
b18 “I am not going to face that masculine company alone: modesty forbids”
Penelope as the ideal Greek woman
b18 “I wish holy Artemis would grant me a death as gentle as that… and save me from wasting my life in anguish and longing for my dear husband, who had all the virtues”
Penelope wishes for death. She is ‘longing’ for Odysseus
b18 “Odysseus was delighted at her words, because she was extorting gifts from her suitors”
Ideal wife
b18 “thus each of the young lords contributed his own valuable gift, and presently the great lady Penelope withdrew to her upper apartment”
Penelope receives the gifts
b18 “you bitch!… I shall go straight over and tell Telemachus what you said, so he can hack you to pieces on the spot”
Odysseus scolds Melantho - shows he believes in Telemachus’ power and foreshadows that Telemachus will kill her
b13 “he addressed her with words on wings, but not with the truth. True as ever to his own interests, he held back the words that were on his lips”
Odysseus deception, lying, relationship with Athena (he can recognise her - sign of a hero)
b13 “Anyone who met you, even a god, would have to be a consummate trickster to surpass you in subterfuge. You were always an…
…obstinate, cunning and irrepressible intriguer”
- Athena on Odysseus’ deception - shows their relationship
b13 “we both know how to get our own way”
Athena and Odysseus are similar
b13 “the tricks and lying tales you love so much!”
Athena to Odysseus
b13 “that is why I cannot desert you in your misfortunes: you are so persuasive, so quick-witted, so self-possessed”
Athena on why she protects Odysseus - essentially his metis and capacity for disguise
b13 “I myself was his escort, so that he would win fame from his journey there”
Athena on her purpose for not telling Telemachus that Odysseus was alive - essentially to further his kleos and heroism
b13 “Telemachus the godlike youth”
then 30 lines later “godlike Odysseus”
comparison between son and father
